My first setup

How to get started
1

Hello all,

I am looking for creating a bike tracker based on Lora.
In a first time I want to make a proof of concept and then I will develop a board if it works well.
I am not sure of where I must start.
What I understood is I need of:

  • A gateway (Just two gateway in my city…): RAK7246 looks good but maybe I can have better for the price. If possible I want to cover a long range (can I cover 5km in town with this product?)
  • A GPS tracker: RAK7200 will make the job in a first time
  • A software application: Is there an Android app to display the position on a map? Or I will use IFTTT to start.

Thanks for your lights. I want to be sure that if I buy that I will be able to make something at home.

2

Bike Tracker to track something you have lost - or to record its movement whilst you ride it?

First is feasible, the second will be constrained by how often you are legally allowed to transmit & the TTN fair use policy. You need to think about how much detail you want on this as the most you can send is once every 2.5 minutes on a short range setting.

Apart from the Pycom Gateway, you will struggle to find a lower cost gateway than the RAK7246 - but if you want to reach out over a distance, you will need a decent antenna high up.

The RAK7200 will indeed provide a tracking function. It’s internal antenna is ‘OK’.

Data is piped through the gateway to a backend server that has a number of ways of connecting on to your application - at which point the possibilities explode. There are hundreds of apps for mapping, how you get it to display a location depending on your data you’ll need to check out. I’m not sure IFTTT is a good fit, but something like Node-Red may be better. The fun of this is trying things out, and at least the software at an entry level doesn’t come with any significant cost apart from the most valuable of all, your time.

3

Hi descartes,

I am sorry for my late answer. I stalled my project for a couple of months.
Yes the idea is to track a lost bike.
To start I bought a Dragino tracker (LGT-92) and there is a Gateway I can catch. And I have enough to play for the moment :slight_smile: